2 hours, forty miles, you do the maths.

On By AlexIn Road RidingLeave a comment

This morning the train was working but the track was broken. Rubbernecking up the train line, as the passenger information system entered an electronic sulk some months ago, there was a complete lack of train shaped objects emerging from the pre-dawn gloom.

Then the flat distorted tones of the PA system informed us that a major points failure at Amersham has suspended all southbound services indefinitely”. Only train companies and BBC announcers use this type of syntax “ is there a school they go to? My fellow commuters remained unmoved on the platform even after a further announcement suggested re-routing via High Wycombe or Rejavik.

Sensing something afoot, I awaited further news which wasn’t long in coming. Alledgedly the major points failure” was now magically fixed and the next train would be along as soon as the driver had finished his breakfast. We all shuffled forward to the platform edge, in the manner of lemmings facing a bit of cliff action, before old flat-tones” on the PA cheerfully announced the points were, in fact, still broken and London bound services would resume sometime in the Spring.

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I’m campaigning for a name change

On By AlexIn Road RidingLeave a comment

For Chiltern Railways. In the future they shall be known as the “Unreliable, Overcrowded Baggage Truck” or BUT-O for short. This morning after a total of two hours travel, I have covered a truly epic 15 miles. Of which the first 5 had been on my bike.

The first train never turned up. The second one broke down threatening to leave us destitute in the Buckinghamshire flatlands. The third has mysteriously mislaid about half of it’s carridges reducing us to increasingly irritated sardines.

Still Chiltern Railways did offer their apologies and hoped we hadn’t been inconvenienced in any way. No, two hours to cover 40 miles while being repeatedly wounded by a fellow commuter’s sharp edged laptop bag and tortured by a thousand inane mobile calls is hardly an inconvenience. How could it be? But for the record I don’t bloody well accept your apologies. Make the trains run on time. It’s not hard and I don’t know why you keep having a problem with it.

If the Americans want to force confessions from those still held in Camp XRay, make them commute for a week on Chiltern Railways. They’ll snap like a twig.

And the creaking singlespeed is now attracting worried glances from passers by no doubt expecting mechanical disaster at any moment. Nothing that sounds like that can be expected to remain in the same shape and configuration for long.

I swapped the pedals. Same creak. It’s definately not my knees. H’mm what next?

Cylogs – a site for obsessives.

On By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments

Cyclogs has an interesting take on Internet willy waving. As you log daily mileage, your progress (or otherwise) is tracked on a leader board against other members. It’s free, simple to use and annoyingly addictive. As membership increases, your own personal standing falls so I’ve plummeted from the vertigo inducing heights of the top 15 to a more realistic mid 50s placing.

There were four riders within two miles of my total and we’re leapfrogging each other most days. One guy though has left the gravitational pull of our cluster and is accelerating outwards to the top 30s with suspicious velocity.

Surely he’s not cheating? I mean what is the point? Any shallower and people’d mistake him for a teaspoon. I adopted a lofty moral position stationed firmly on high ground for at least a couple of days before being driven to action.

I emailed the fella asking what his route was. Then I checked it with three mapping programs and “ in desperation “ some string and a ruler. Still convinced that his distances are mendacious works of fiction, I’m considering requesting an OS overfly. Some friends have told me this smacks of obsessive behaviour “ what’s wrong with these people? Everyone “ except me of course “ is so weird nowadays.

Oh and my London commuter singlespeed cross dressing jump bike has developed a creak somewhere in the transmission area. I’ve tried tightening up the cranks and ignoring it. But it’s getting worse. I’m wondering if completely catastrophic failure will soon insert itself painfully into my journey to work

The Internet is a wonderful thing

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

For reasons best not discussed, we were debating classic song titles. I trumped the lot of them with “Drop Kick Me Jesus through the Goal Posts of Life”. I was summarily accused of telling a great big whopper of a lie and challenged to prove it.

A couple of seconds intensive googling brought up the required result.
The effect was like mainlining laughing gas. It’s a classic song and shows what can be done with some righteous beliefs and a rhyming words book

Full Lyrics Below
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The four horses of the commuting apocalypse…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road Riding2 Comments

…Wind, Rain, Dark and Cold. All four horseman were out riding with me this morning as 30 MPH winds first batted me sideways, before settling down and driving cold stinging rain into my face for three long miles. Dark and Cold were in close attendance adding their own brand of misery.

Riding in these conditions sometimes feel like a tax on the stupid. And maybe it is “ the seeds of my downfall were planted last night with the abandonment of a resolution to pre-pack the commuting bag ready for morning. The alarm trilled irritatingly as it always does at 6:30am and as normal I flail around wildly trying to cancel it/break it into a thousand small pieces so not to wake my wife. From there on in, things kind of went downhill.

It’s dark. Really proper dark where I live with no streetlights and no close conurbations. But thanks to the miracle of electric light, I’m able to dress in sufficient expensive gear to waterproof a small elephant before heading out into the cold and moistness of a winter’s morning. Today I headed back in a number of occasions for keys, water bottle, work shirt, etc. That’s what happens when laziness overrides common sense leaving me standing uncertainly in the kitchen, head swaying from side to side, trying to remember what I’ve forgotten.

As may be apparent I’m not a morning person. My cognitive functions refuse to operate before daylight creeps over the horizon and they have been fortified by a strong cup of coffee. Their response to any enquiry before such precepts have been fulfilled is to flip a neural V” sign and suggest consulting the hind brain instead which may be able to help. It didn’t and I had a train to catch so off I went with the fifth horseman “ more a pit pony really “ doubt” riding alongside.

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It’s like Piccadilly circus out there!

On By AlexIn Road RidingLeave a comment

Which wasn’t as surreal as I’d first thought. Because it was acutally Piccadilly Circus. Let me explain, the underground strike drove many of the tube rats out of their tunnels and onto bikes of assorted vintages, ridden with skills blunted by twenty years neglect.

Glancing over my shoulder at a set of lights, I was presented with a rambling pantheon of two wheeled transport, 4 or 5 deep in places. Suits and trouser clips jockeyed for position with lycra and SPDs. It was a great experience as this critical mass took flight (pedal?) on the green light and the cars “ for once “ played second fiddle.

There are sure to be casualties though. Diffidence and stupidity in equal amounts created traffic havoc at every junction. Increasingly frustrated motorists sounded horns and waved clenched fists at wobbling and worried cyclists. If the strike does nothing else, my hope is it will educate those who rode today what it’s like for the rest of us who ride every day.

But I say again, it was great to be part of a large cycling community today. Roll on summer and more of the same.

Now that’s a kick ass donkey

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

The internet has been described as all things to all (wo)men. It’s been rather better described as an enormous repositry for Porn interspersed with the deluded ramblings of a million conspiracy theorists. The truth – as with most of these things – is somewhere in the middle and my own personal shining light is the BBC website.

Occasionally though, an otherwise dull siding way off the information highway throws out a real gem. I give you this snippet from “The Northern Light” a electronic version of Montana’s newspaper.

http://www.ttc-cmc.net/~nlight/2{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2}20news.htm

Please transport that donkey to the middle of my office and let it admister its’ savage justice.

Outstanding 🙂

EBAY – a shoddy place to do business.

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

Ebay pulled a couple of my listings yesterday. Their grounds for doing so were mildly amusing insomuch as it is a transparent policy to increase their listing fees. Buried somewhere in Ebay T&Cs is the entertaining precept that the seller may not charge the buyer for PayPal’s extortionate transaction fees because in some way this undermines trust in the seller?

How does that work then? As a seller, I offer the buyer many options to pay for the item. One of those attracts costs which I have no intention of paying. If the buyer feels the same way, fine “ send me a cheque, do a bank transfer, pay me in chickens, I care not. How can this in some way undermine trust in the seller? Beats me!

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Real Mountain Bikers

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding1 Comment

It’s official. I am a proper mountain biker. Retro traditionalists may claim that 300 metres makes not a mountain, but this is nothing more than semantic pedantry. I’d further refute their laughable claims by offering this compelling and watertight evidence:

Impervious in the face of dampness. As the weather tended to the spectacularly moist, my riding buddy cluster compressed to five or less. Proper riders unearthed dusty waterproofs, traded race shoes for winter boots and, striking a heroic pose, manfully rode out into the driving rain. Frankly, it was pretty unpleasant – a flashback to November with greasy trails outing summer technique as overconfident ego-stroking rubbish which dissolved under sheets of the wet stuff. Although once I’d slid into a tree and suffered a two hour deluxe mud enema, it became strangely enjoyable. Especially at the end. That was the really good bit.

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The dreaded school quiz night

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

It’s the end of a long week “ pointless meetings punctuated by periods of intense activity, fitfully attempting to close the gap between glib promises and actual delivery. The house is full of shouting offspring annoying two generations of the Leigh family and ratcheting my stress levels ever higher. Haven’t these kids heard of Chiltern Railways and their mythical timetable? I’m considering publishing a book my life on a platform” “ it wouldn’t be interesting but it’d be cheaper than therapy.

The school quiz night awaits. This is one of these dreadful group hugs that raises about 50p and attempts to unite a rambling pantheon of disparate individuals to a common cause. The strategy is excellent but the tactics are dreadful. 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of those who occupy the hall could stay at home unwittingly donating 50 quid so by trebling the evening’s revenue without actually attending. But hey, I really had nothing better to do. Well I did but since there was a cheap bar, I could do it just as well in a drafty hall with a smell than shot me back in time thirty years.

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